


Ineffable

by Lorelei



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 16:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21164306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorelei/pseuds/Lorelei
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale discuss the ineffable plan.-or-The implications of free will on the actions of angels and demons.





	Ineffable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamerfound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamerfound/gifts).

_ **Ineffable: too great for words.**_

**– The Oxford English Dictionary**

Wine was more or less in its infancy then, but Crowley had gotten onto an excellent source. He lounged languorously, toga askew, luxuriating on the edge of a dreamy buzz as Aziraphale sat primly sipping and sighing over the exquisite flavor.

“You know,” Crowley began, “I don’t even know what I did. One day I’m an angel and then BAM! I’m kicked out, fallen. I guess I was hanging out with a bad crowd? I wasn’t even really friends with Satan. Just sort of a hanger on. Didn’t matter, though. Still fallen. Bit harsh, don’t you think?”

Aziraphale paused a moment to consider. Crowley looked so sad. Demons were The Enemy, of course, but perhaps the wine softened Aziraphale’s righteousness just a smidge. “I don’t think you should blame yourself,” he said. “Angels don’t have free will. If you fell, it was because She wanted you to.”

“Yes …” Crowley drew the word out and ended it with a hiss. “No free will for demons or angels. I wile, you thwart. We’re just puppets, playing our assigned roles.”

Aziraphale took another sip of the wine. “Well, sometimes I do good and you thwart that. But, yes, all part of the ineffable plan.”

“What, everything?” asked Crowley. “Every wile, every thwarting, even all the humans get up to? The Sacred Band of Thebes? All of it?”

“Well, humans have free will, so I don’t know about them. But angels and demons, yes.”

“She’s got a lot to answer for then, don’t you think? I don’t know about your lot, but mine have been up to some awful stuff.”

Aziraphale hesitated, then pasted his smile firmly back onto his face. “I don’t always understand Gabriel. Or Michael. And I have to admit that I find the boils and the frogs and the locusts very hard to reconcile. But they are all clearly part of the ineffable plan.”

Crowley refilled both their cups. “No free will, angel. We must be meant to finish the flagon.”

Aziraphle smiled beneath his laurel wreath. “Yes. Wine is one of my favorite parts of the ineffable plan.”

_When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes_  
_I all alone beweep my outcast state,_  
_ And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,_  
_ And look upon myself, and curse my fate,_  
_ …_  
_ Haply I think on thee, and then my state,_  
_ Like to the lark at break of day arising_  
_ From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;_  
_ For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings_  
_ That then I scorn to change my state with kings._  
\--Shakespeare, Sonnets

It was some centuries later that they began to consider the full implications of free will, or more precisely the implications of the lack of free will. Having recently seen Mr. Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Crowley was heading to the Isle of Skye to introduce a daughter of Clan MacLeod to a son of Clan Macdonald. As per the Agreement, Crowley had also consented to make sure that a certain midwife made it to a certain croft in time to see a certain bairn safely born. Aziraphale, meanwhile, would take care of things in London.

Aziraphale handed Crowley a hamper. “I packed you some refreshments for the journey. There’s a meat pie, some mead, and a clean handkerchief.”

Crowley grinned and handed Aziraphale a key. “Thanks. And thanks for looking after my garden while I’m gone. Just be sure not to coddle the plants. Two quarts of water a week for the big ones, one for the small, and that’s all,” he said firmly. “Don’t fall for their wilting. It’s all an act.”

“I’m very good with plants,” Aziraphale assured him. “I’ve got a green thumb. Ever since the beginning, when I was put in charge of the peach trees in the Garden. Thank you for doing the midwife," he added. "I feel as though I am shirking my duties, but I really wasn’t fancying a trip north at this time of year.”

“Don’t mention it.” Crowley replied. “And as to shirking, I don’t think you should blame yourself. I’ve been thinking about what you said about free will, and it must apply to our Agreement too. No free will means that it’s not your fault, angel.”

Aziraphale brightened. “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. It’s true. Our Agreement must be part of the ineffable plan. Well, that does make me feel better.”

_“I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”_ – Oscar Wilde

The subject of free will arose again in the 1880s when Aziraphale summoned Crowley to a conference in St James Park. Crowley did not take kindly to being summoned, even metaphorically. Demons can be touchy about that kind of thing. He sauntered around a tree toward their usual park bench but before reaching it he found Aziraphale kneeling on a picnic cloth, laying out delicate bone china plates.

“Oh, there you are!” Aziraphale beamed and began to fill serving platters with neatly portioned tea sandwiches, scones, and petit fours.

“Yes. Here I am,” Crowley snarked, tapping his cane against his dapper top hat. “What’s up? Something urgent?”

“Sit down and eat something,” Aziraphale encouraged. “Cucumber sandwich?”

Crowley folded himself, elegantly, onto the picnic blanket. “Are those devilled eggs?” he asked. “You know I love devilled eggs.”

“Just for you, my dear.” Aziraphale piled Crowley’s plate with delicacies. Turning, he pulled a teapot, cups, and saucers from his basket. “I thought we could have a nice tea al fresco, to celebrate the lovely spring weather. But setting up the spirit lamp to heat the water takes such a while.” He looked hopefully at Crowley, widening his eyes in his best puppy dog look.

“Subtle you are not, angel. As it happens, heating things up is one of my specialties.” Crowley snapped his fingers and the teapot filled with perfectly simmered water. While they waited for the tea to steep, Crowley said, “As Mr. Wilde recently remarked, I can resist anything, except temptation and apparently your eyes. I thought that we were not doing our little get togethers any more? Thought Upstairs had reprimanded you for fraternizing?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Well, yes. But that was just Gabriel. I’ve been thinking about it. What is so bad about fraternizing? Angels and demons were brothers initially, before the fall. Surely if we are fraternizing, it’s because we are meant to? After all, we’re not humans. We haven’t got the free will to do things we weren’t meant to do.”

Crowley nodded as he finished off a dainty chocolate cake. “Quite right. Angel-demon tea parties are all part of the ineffable plan.”

Aziraphale was not entirely certain that Crowley wasn’t being sarcastic, but he was reassured nonetheless and poured more tea. “Is it true that demons dance with the devil? Would you like to come to my club tonight and learn the Gavotte?”

_“You will remember_  
_ When this is blown over_  
_ Everything's all by the way_  
_ When I grow older_  
_ I will be there at your side to remind you_  
_ How I still love you (I still love you)”_  
\--Queen, Love of my Life

On the third day after Armageddon, Aziraphale showed Crowley around his remade bookshop. “I do appreciate Adam alphabetizing everything for me.”

On the fifth day, Crowley took Aziraphale for a drive in his reconditioned Bentley. “He didn’t fix the tape deck. It still turns everything into Queen. How did he know that I like it that way?”

On the seventh day, Crowley invited Aziraphale over for dinner. It’s true that Aziraphale had watered Crowley’s plants, and they had dined together in fine restaurants, and they had gotten drunk in the bookshop, but Crowley had never entertained him in his home. Aziraphale wondered whether he ought to bring flowers. Or wine. In the end, he brought a book, Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He wasn’t sure whether his choice said too much or not enough.

Aziraphale brushed at his jacket, smoothed his platinum curls, and pushed the doorbell, nervously. The door opened slowly.

Crowley, dressed in black jeans and a black silk shirt, leaned against the door frame. “Hello, angel.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Hello, Crowley.”

Crowley reached up and took off his customary dark glasses. “I’ve been thinking about free will.”

Aziraphale swallowed nervously. “You have?”

“Yeesss…” Crowley nodded. He looked deeply into Aziraphale’s eyes and hesitated a moment. “Devil help me if I’m wrong about this. But if there’s no free will …” He leaned forward and wrapped his arm around Aziraphale’s waist, pulling him closer. “Then I must be meant to do this ….” His head descended and their lips met, with heat and urgency and the promise of more to come.

Aziraphale melted into Crowley’s arms as his arms crept up to wind around Crowley's neck. “Ineffable,” he murmured, as Crowley drew him into the apartment and shut the door.


End file.
